ATP! Live Review: Quicksand - Bowery Ballroom, NYC (08/24/2012)

Beyonce isn’t the only live act that can sell out of tickets just seconds after they go on sale; direct your attention over to the New York City foursome, Quicksand.

When Quicksand announced they were playing NYC’s Bowery Ballroom it was seemingly mass chaos all over the Internet world. With a surprise performance at the Revelation Records show case in California this passed June, it’s no wonder those of us (on the East Coast) who missed out were wondering when the group would grace us with a live performance. After all, they hadn’t performed in nearly thirteen years.

Tickets went so fast that another date for the very next day was added, and even those sold out in a matter of minutes. In fact, tickets were in such high demand that they were going up on StubHub for up to five hundred dollars. Even pesky scalpers with fake tickets were making some money the day of the much-anticipated performance.

The upstairs portion of the Bowery Ballroom filled up just an hour before Quicksand was due to take the stage; the floor was packed and you could barely move. The background music stopped, and Walter Schreifels, Sergio Vega, Alan Cage, and Tom Capone all took the stage. The room roared with applause and the crowd quickly shoved forward as Vega rang out the bass intro to Omission, which the group flawlessly performed on Jimmy Fallon just two nights prior. The crowd was going crazy with a few stage divers flying into the crowd, several of which knocked Vega’s microphone right on to him. Vega, who didn’t seem too phased by it, had a contagious smile on his face during the whole entire set.

Omission was immediately followed by a back-to-back block of Slip songs including ‘Unfulfilled’, ‘Head To Wall’, ‘Fazer’, ‘Too Official’, and ‘Freezing Process’, and was eventually broken up by ‘Brown Gargantuan’ off the band's second record, "Manic Compression". Even when Schreifels took a breath or two away from the mic during a chorus, the entire room still echoed with every word of every song. No one in the band said much, except Schreifels humbly thanking everyone for coming out and commenting on how happy he was to be up there.

No doubt everyone attendance would agree that the set was absolutely flawless; you would honestly think all of the songs were being played straight off the record if you didn’t know any better. The hour long set ended with ‘Landmine Spring’ and a crowd left absolutely speechless. Is this the last we’ll hear of Quicksand? If there is any justice in the world, then hopefully not!

Danielle Parsons